First Impressions: “Love at the Five & Dime” by John Prine and Kelsey Waldon

Friday morn, I pressed play on the new John Prine-Kelsey Waldon spin across a red brick floor (though it’s more of a slow dance), their cover of Nanci Griffith’s “Love at the Five & Dime.” It’s the first single from the forthcoming More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith album, a project that has obviously been in the works for a few years given that John Prine passed away in April 2020. Listening to their rendition is akin to hearing it for the first time. It’s sublime, wondrous and all my other overused superlatives rolled into one.

I don’t say that lightly, I hasten to add. As I’ve noted before on this blog, I’ve been a fan of Nanci’s since first hearing her on a Fast Folk Musical Magazine sampler while deejaying a folk music show on my college radio station in the mid-1980s. Hers was one of many artists I discovered via that magazine, and what attracted me to her was more than just the folk-country hybrid she forged. Her lyrics sported a literati quality—her songs were essentially short stories set to song.

She also, in a way, introduced me to my wife Diane, who inquired about two Nanci Griffith CDs she’d ordered through the prior manager not longer after I became the new manager for a video store’s CD department. (For more on that, click here.) Together, we saw her almost every time she played the Philly area from 1989 on. Every album she released got many plays in our household.

The tribute also features Sarah Jarosz, Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett and Kathy Mattea, Brandy Clark, Shawn Colvin, Ida Mae, Steve Earle, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Todd Snider, Iris DeMent, Mary Gauthier, and the War and Treaty. It’s a nice mix, with the young ‘uns (all things being relative) obviously influenced by Nanci and the old-timers her longtime friends and contemporaries. (FYI, the CD is the way to go here, as the vinyl version trims the Ida Mae and War & Treaty tracks in order to fit onto one LP.) 

In looking at the track list, what’s amazing to me is the memories it engenders. Through the years, Diane and I were treated to Emmylou covering “It’s a Hard Life” on her Nash Ramblers tour, Iris opening for Nanci, Kathy Mattea singing “Goin’ Gone” on a double-bill with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Nanci in a round-robin with Steve, Emmy and Bruce Cockburn—and, in 1993, John Prine and Nanci co-headlining at the Mann Music Center. They played separate solo sets that night, but also joined each other for several songs. My main non-music memory of the show: the many Pagans—Philly’s version of the Hell’s Angels—in attendance. Who knew they enjoyed contemplative story-songs? One music-related memory: Nanci welcoming a little girl onto the stage to sing “From a Distance” with her. What I didn’t know—or had long forgotten—until this morning, thanks to a contemporaneous Allentown Morning Call review, is that performance was arranged by an organization that grants dying children a wish.

I’m getting far afield, I know. Of this song: John Prine is a legend, someone who—like Nanci—has influenced generations of singer-songwriters, including Kelsey, whose talents enamored him enough to sign her to his label, Oh Boy Records, in 2019. In due time and decades, she will undoubtedly be inspiring those who come after her; she’s the real deal. (If she ever comes to your town, do yourself a favor and see her. Her show at the Cat’s Cradle last year remains with me, still.) Anyway, on Instagram, she explained that the recording took an unexpected turn: “I was just supposed to come in and sing [background vocals] but John insisted it become a duet.” It’s the duet nature of the song, in fact, with John’s gravelly voice offset by her twang-imbued vocals, that gives the song a new sheen.